


Quality Control

by persesphone



Category: X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Break Up, Established Relationship, F/M, Love, Make Up, Marvel RarePair Exchange, Post-Break Up, Rare Pairings, Resolved Argument, angel and alex are both stubborn but they can't be away from each other for long, angel eats cookies to avoid talking, i've always found this pairing interesting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 05:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14074404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persesphone/pseuds/persesphone
Summary: Angel and Alex break up. After time apart, they realize that they were both wrong and that they can never be apart for too long. Full of fluff.





	Quality Control

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: comparing hand sizes with your ship of choice!
> 
> I'm going to ignore that they both die and go to a world where there was no unnecessary deaths in the films

****They break up on Wednesday on a third under a thunderstorm; Angel thinks it’s fitting.

She’s never liked Wednesdays.

* * *

It’s a crisp, clear morning in late September when it happened:

Angel Salvadore—all five foot two inches of her, clear brown skin, and chapped pink lips and spitfire, shoving her face in her on-again/off-again boyfriend’s face to reiterate how much of an asshole he is, of how bitter, and reckless. Her hair is kept back by a red cotton bandana, and he steps forward, penetrating the little bubble of space that was left between to snap back his own words—about how vicious and vitriolic she is, indecisive, and _so fucking bossy_.

It’s been weeks since she and Alex broke up on a bitter September afternoon, the air biting at her ankles and her nose and he was turning _pink_ … Barely two weeks, to be exact. A week and four days later.

She’s has a spicy kale and ginger booster drinks in shot glasses. She’d gone to yoga that afternoon, using her membership for the first time. She ate a fucking _spring salad_ for lunch, which she _never_  does. She’s fine. She’s centered. She’d worn her favorite pair of heels and leather dress, feeling _good_. And she’s perfectly capable of accomplishing things, she tells herself, and finally being _kind_ to herself, and— _relaxing_. She’s relaxed, yes. And she’s going to treat herself, using those gift cards buried in her dresser drawer, and she’s going to feel _good_.

She’s very much considering it. She takes a deep breath. An old black sweater of his hangs in the closet—he’d forgotten to take it. Angel inhales a deep breath. Around her ankle is still the charm bracelet he tied on for her three summers ago.

* * *

It’s a week and six days later and Angel’s sitting on the carpeted window seat in her quiet singular bedroomed apartment, knees pulled to her chest, in a very ugly but very soft, stretched pink pullover sweater. Her hands warm around a large cup of extra-soothing chamomile tea, abstractedly gazing out to the swirling red and orange leaves outside. A mother herds three children into a blue SUV for soccer practice. A pristine dalmatian is taken for a walk, she watches. Pre-teens ride bicycles in the road. She’s relaxed—finally—truly, she thinks—when she hears, first, and then sees a familiar navy car park in her driveway. Because then that awful, brain-meltingly reaction returns as the driver exits and disappears under the cover of the front door, and the palpitations in her chest are a distraction, and the bleariness of her mind is a curse (certainly, it must be). Because then she hears the door open, unlocked, and close, and she knows that it’s only seconds until her bedroom door will be pushed open, and even few until she hears that distracting _voice_.

She keeps her face a blank canvas of stone. She doesn’t look away from the window.

The guy soon standing in the doorway is tall and blonde and chiseled and visibly, tangibly doleful. He’s still, hands resting in his jacket’s pockets—casually, it would seem, if it wasn’t for his frown.

Angel doesn’t look. He’s staring. She hates staring; she doesn’t have time for this.

And he doesn’t speak either, just stands there. Once, he clears his throat. “Uh. Ang.”

“What do you want?” Her words come out more unfriendly than had been intended.

Alex sighs.

There’s silence. She hears him move, rustle around for something.

“Listen. Ang—”

Instantly, she swings her legs over the edge of the window seat, toes brushing the edge of the carpet. She’s glaring. Of course she is.

He stares and she looks almost eerily identical to how she had when they had their outburst, but considerably more relaxed. It’s the sharp dagger to her eyes, he concludes, as he watches her head cock to the side, nearly challenging and nearly instigating. She’s clutching the cup between her hands in a tight vice, the steam still curling up and across her face. She’s got her hair pulled up in a ponytail. Her eyes flicker from him to the carpet to a frame hanging on the wall back to him. She’s got on the pearl earrings she said she hated.

“What?” he starts.

She rolls her eyes. “Go and get out, will you?” and as she stands to stride to the other side of the room, he notices she’s only wearing underwear beneath her sweater.

He’s offended at her words. “ _What_?”

Now it’s her turn to look taken aback.

Silently, he’s standing his ground.

“That wasn’t a question. You shouldn’t be here.”

“ _Says who_?”

Disappearing into her closet as a way to no longer see him, she snaps, “fuck off.”

A slightly confused, “no!” follows. And he’s clenching his jaw, posture stiff and shoulders distressingly broad in his davy-grey shirt and beige jacket.

She wants to tell him to leave her be. She wants to ask him who does he think he is. She wants to run her fingers through his hair and tease about who he let cut his hair horrendously again.

She’s still hiding away in her closet when he hisses, a low baritone, “I swear to _God_ , Ang! You—” He breaks off. The room is still and eerily quiet. The sound of a wrapper opening is the only sound in the apartment. Forehead creasing in a confused frown, he follows where she disappeared inside her small walk-in closet. He continues in a lower voice, “What are you doing?”

Sitting on the floor with raised knees, she’s emptying a pack of cookies into her mouth at a rhythm so she didn’t have to talk. Or look up at him for that matter.

“Are you comfy down there?” he asks, clearly sarcastic.

She ignores him, dusting off her fingers over an empty part of the packet before she finishes chewing, swallows, and continues. If she keeps eating, she thinks, there won’t be a chance for her to say anything she would come to regret. This is a bad habit. It’s a reoccurring habit.

So, he gives a small sigh before plopping to the floor and squeezing in beside her. It’s a tight squeeze and she’s visibly uncomfortable.

“What are you doing?”

He peers innocently at her. Raises an eyebrow. “Joining you, obviously.” He’s taken on in noticeably lighter, joking tone than before.

Her response comes many seconds later. She swallows. “You aren't—you don’t have— _don't_.”

He nods.

“That meant for you to _get up_.” She pushes with her side, effortlessly getting him to move due to the small space, and only succeeding in squishing him against the wall.

“Why?”

“ _Why_ are you _still here_?” she demands.

“Because I like to enjoy cookies comfortable and relaxed like anybody,” he defends, and she’s still pushing him into the wall. “What is your _problem_?”

“ _You’re_ the problem!”

He scoffs.

“You’re _too close_!”

He had been joking before, but now grows serious, telling her to stop, that he’s had enough. When she’s calm, he explains that he’d come over to apologize on his part for their nasty break-up. All the while, Angel slowly works on one cookie, staring at her bare legs stretched out. He’s wearing jeans, but she remembers the contrast of skin shade when they’re side by side, of when they entwine hands together.

When he finishes apologizing, she tells that he hadn’t needed to do so. “It isn’t about you,” she mutters, but the words don’t quite sound right. “You don’t have to do any of this.” The package crinkles beneath the weight of her arm.

Beside her, he nods. Tisks. His fingers are laced together. “You’re right,” he goes, and she bites the rest of the cookie. “But I was a jerk to you.”

“Yeah, you were,” she agrees.

But in honesty, they had both said things they hadn’t meant. This is mutually understood through the tension in the air.

He bites back the small grin thats both offended and amused. “Well thanks for that.”

As she feels a smirk, she looks at him—at his eyes, an almost glowing baby blue, at the pale square of his jaw that she’s imagining trailing a finger down, and the dark-golden hair beginning to stick up as if it had been cut with a knife.

Angel nods, just once. She’s looking away.

“What is it?”

“We’re both jerks,” she concludes.

He nods his head as if weighing options. “That is most likely true.”

“Is this why you came all the way here? To kind-of apologize, and call me mean?” She’s giving a small smile.

A hand flies to his chest in defense. “Hey, at least _I_ apologized.”

Angel rolls her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”

His grin twitches wider, turning alarmingly soothing.

Minutes tick by and they’ve begun passing cookies back and forth until the air becomes normal and de-stressed again, and this time, Angel raises a finger to slowly glide from his ear to the front of his chin to his lips. She nods once, and he knows.

From the floor of the closet, they can see satisfying portion of her wide window, and watch the leaves fall and birds flit by.

He takes her hand away from his face holds it in his. Brushes off crumbs, then examines them. It’s soft and intimate and he says, “you have such small hands for someone so mean.”

In play, she smack his shoulder.

Later, when the afternoon is changing to night, and they’re both huddled under blankets, her laptop on her bed and opened to Netflix, Angel does apologize more formally, but Alex already knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know how crappy this is. (or not?)


End file.
